


A Professional Favor

by zempasuchil



Category: The Blacklist (TV)
Genre: Dom/sub Play, F/M, Femdom, Restraints, Shoes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-13
Updated: 2014-05-13
Packaged: 2018-01-24 14:09:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1607957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zempasuchil/pseuds/zempasuchil
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>PWP. Liz finds Don unable to sleep at the hotel bar, and decides she can help him work out his tension when his domme doesn't show up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Professional Favor

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't seen the finale yet - this is just set somewhere in the ambiguous time of "this isn't infidelity for Liz because she's found out Tom is a spy" and "Ressler is floundering a bit post-Audrey." Inspired by the nerdist video of Megan and Diego where he points out her shoes, and, uh, how great Ressler is at getting injured on the show. Unbeta'd.

The FBI has them holed up at a outside-town hotel till tomorrow, till the exchange goes down. Reddington is off doing his own thing, which shows both a great measure of trust on the part of the FBI as well as the fact that they’re completely out of their depth where it concerns Reddington. Liz hardly minds for the night. She’ll take some calm before the storm of tomorrow.

Liz tries to get herself a few hours of sleep, just as she’s sure Ressler’s doing: all is quiet in the room next to her. But she tosses and turns, and finally figures she could use a few sips of alcohol to put her down.

She wanders downstairs in today’s heels to the bar, where she sees the slumped shoulders, white shirt, collar over a reddened neck: her partner, not asleep as she’d thought, but with his elbows on the bar, twitching his leg and his foot. As restless as she.

He nearly jumps when she approaches him. “Hard time sleeping?’ she asks.

“Like you wouldn’t believe.” He doesn’t look so good. Eyes a bit bloodshot, far more fidgety than she’d ever noticed him before. His eyebrows are furrowed. He looks cranky, but worse than usual.

“Same. I thought I’d grab a drink to help me out.” He signals the bartender over, and she gives her order - whiskey, no ice, and another beer for her partner, whose beer is nearly gone and whose tumbler of liquor she doesn’t even want to touch. “Looks like you’re out here for a later night, though,” she says, not a little anxious that he’s doing alright. Since Audrey.

“Alcohol’s not going to help me sleep.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing more than usual.”

“Come on, Don.” She sighs, and he looks sideways at her. “For one, I’m a profiler. I can tell you’re anxious, irritated, on edge. I’d guess you were waiting for someone, but it’s late so you’ve probably given up. But still anxious enough to not go to bed. Also, I work with you, so I know what you normally look like when you’re irritated. This is worse.”

“You’re right. I was going to meet someone but they cancelled.”

She raises her eyebrows. “And?”

“That’s getting personal.”

“Yes. But we’ve got to intercept this drop and make some arrests tomorrow, and you don’t look like you’re in a state for it.”

She expects him to brush her off again, but he sighs, wipes down his face with a hand. “I can manage. I’ll be fine by tomorrow.”

“Uh huh. You don’t look fine or normal, if you’ll excuse my saying so. You just look like a junky itching for a hit.” He eyes her as she downs her liquor in one go.

His lips twitch, like his hands, like his knees. “If it’ll satisfy your curiosity,” he says, staring at the bar top, “I was waiting for a friend. A domme. She canceled.” He sighs and then swings his head to meet her eyes. “So I’m riding it out.” His voice is cracked and a bit hoarse. It’s nerves without resignation. Still a little desperate and off his footing, enough to be telling her this. “Have we bonded enough now?”

Liz only hesitates for a few seconds. “I can help you.”

He raises his eyebrows at her, clearly skeptical.

“I’m serious. A professional favor. I used to do some of that.”

“What, professional favors?”

“ _Domination_ , Don.” Her voice is sharp and in this dim light she may imagine that his ears flush and darken just a bit. She may not be telling the whole truth. It wasn’t ever work.

“I couldn’t - no, Liz, that’s - Agent Keen. That would be inappropriate.”

“You’re flustered. And you look like shit. I wouldn’t want to work with you tomorrow in this state. Take the help I’m offering.”

His head is hanging but he’s glancing up at her and the urge to shove his chin up or down either way enters her mind. Get him to face her straightforward or make him not look at her.

“I couldn’t ask you to,” he says.

“You’re not asking me. I’m telling you.” She flags the bartender for the bill and puts Ressler’s room number on both while he stares. She touches his elbow firmly as if to lever him out of his seat with just a couple fingers. “Let’s go. Now.” He moves off the stool as if her fingers beckon, but she keeps at his elbow, propelling him with the smallest touch. He goes along with it. He fucking goes along with it. A little bit of heady euphoria is bubbling up her spine, making her posture straighter, her stride more confident. She could stop and she thinks he would too, already maybe a bit lost without her.

She guides him up to their rooms, passing hers, going on to his. She’s already in her heels, and she doesn’t plan on needing anything more than that. As long as basic play will do it for him.

Outside of his door she stops and he automatically goes for his keycard. “If you don’t want me to come in, just say it. I’ll just tell you to go to bed and leave you alone. I promise, if that’s what you want.”

He sticks the keycard in the slot, watching for the light to turn, then turns the handle when it’s green and opens it a crack. Then Ressler looks at her. He’s definitely flushed in this light. “Yes,” he says. “Please come in”

He goes over to the closet where his suitcase is. She stands at the door, hesitant for a moment, a little unpracticed with someone new.

“It’s not sex,” he says, looking through his clothing and not at her. “It’s just…”

“Of course.” Her mind is whirring and she walks over to stand next to him. Not too close, not yet, but no more than a foot away. “What are you looking for?”

“Cuffs. 

“So, you do restraints.”

“Yes.”

“Blindfolds?” He nods. “I need to hear you say it.”

“Yes,” he mumbles.

“Pain?” 

“Yes.”

“Are bruises okay?”

He cracks a smile. Good. “Yes. Considering our line of work, I won’t even have to hide them.”  
She gets his safe word, she figures out how much pain he’s looking for, all while he pulls out these ties and, good god, work handcuffs and keys, and leather bands to put under them for comfort.

Then she says, “Do you like my shoes?”

He swallows and looks down at her feet.

“Ressler. Or do you prefer -”

“That’s fine,” he says quickly. “‘Ressler’ is… good.”

“Mhmm,” she hums. “Professional. Ressler. Look up at me,” she says, quiet but with a stern edge. He does. “Do you like my shoes?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want me to step on you with them?”

He swallows again, says hoarse, pupils blooming with desire. “Yes”

Oh, good. She can do that.

“I’m not going to undress. But you… take off your shirt.” He goes for the buttons. “Slow.”

He slows.

“Slower.” She takes the leather bands in hand, takes one hand to hamper him, and ties the leather on, then the other, ties the leather on. She makes sure it’s snug but not tight, feels the heat of his pulse from the thin skin of his wrist, sees the veins slightly protruding. she’s careful not to touch. She guides each hand back to join the other, setting them on his chest where he’s undoing his shirt for her.

Turning, Liz takes the sash from around the hotel bathrobe where it’s hanging, unused, in the closet. She returns her attention to Ressler, who has dutifully moved on very slowly. His hands are shaking a little. She wants to say _don’t worry_ but that would probably ruin the mood. They’ve got the safe word. Shaking is good at this point.

Once his shirt is done she can see bruises. From work, she presumes; they don’t look like anything more than the kind you’d get after chasing someone through a crowd then tackling them.

She drapes the sash like a scarf over his shoulders, then steps up closer to him and touches one small dark patch on his chest with a finger. Then she pushes it and looks at him closely. He’s blinking slowly, looking down at where she’s touching him, eyes opening and closing. he winces. She finds a more vivid purple bruise one just below his ribs and hears his sharp intake of breath when she pushes there.

“I’ll just start slow,” she says. “Been a bit since I did this with someone new.”

He makes a small noise of acknowledgement. “It’s fine.”

“Is it?” she asks, low, and presses her thumbs slow and hard into two more bruises at each side. His breathing catches, but she’s not stopping short now, holding his hips gently with her hands but digging her thumbnails in, and he makes a surprised _ahh!_ noise, open-mouthed. And then she lets up, lets go of him, steps back. “Fine?”

“Yes. Yes, please.”

She spins him around deftly, so he has his back to her, then says “Get on your knees.” He hesitates just a moment, so she knees in the backs of his legs so he buckles and falls to the carpet with a thud, sprawling forward onto his hands. “Sloppy. Get up.” Grabbing the curl over his forehead, she pulls his head up and he snaps his head back and follows, mouth open, making an _aaaah, aaahhh_ complaint.

“Quiet.” He does.

This is one of her favorite things: getting men on their knees. He does it so well, back straight, nearly military posture.

“Hands behind your head.” He hesitates again, moving his arms too slowly to be called attentive, so she yanks his hair again. “Ressler!” She’ll remind him of their arrangement, the name they’ve agreed upon, his terms. “Do what I say.”

He does, and she cuffs him like that.

As the metal clicks, quick and efficient onto his wrists, she can see the tension in his back ratchet up. He hisses from between his teeth and his arms bulge, straining at his restraints. Watching his muscles flex under the skin of his back, seeing the faint freckling there that’s faded after a long winter, it’s something she’s never seen before. A new side of her partner, so to speak.

She hopes she’ll be seeing more of this one.

Taking the bathrobe belt off her shoulder, she loops it around the cuffs’ chain, and Don makes a small, involuntary noise. “What are you doing?” he says, and she can hear all the heated rumble in his voice, the strain she hears when he’s in pain. She hasn’t given him any reason to be in pain yet, besides the fall to the floor.

“I’m going to tie you to the bedpost.”  
-

 

He’s lying on his back on the floor, cuffed hands suspended in the air above his face, the thin terrycloth sash tethering him to the carved bedpost like a leash.

Liz kicks his legs open, more a gentle suggestion than a kick but she knows where the hard sole of her shoe will hit, and that Don’s resistance will be approximate to the pain he’s courting. A kick to his ankles, a kick to his calf, a kick to the knee, and he’s lifting himself up on the strength of that sash, to see what she’s doing to him. His face is starting to turn red, thin-skinned redhead he is, and even if it’s partly from the exertion of hanging by his wrists she knows the tension in his muscles only works him up throughout his whole body.

A gentle kick to the knee, and then a less gentle one to the inner thigh, when he doesn’t open his legs all the way. He legs out a high grunt, and still resists.

“Don’t worry, Agent. I promised not to injure you.” She strokes where she just kicked with her barely-pointed leather toe, putting a hand on the bedpost to support herself as she toes up his thigh. The muscles are taught and hard there, and seeing the ripping fold of his trousers over his rounded thighs makes her feel indecent. This is her coworker. She shouldn’t be staring at the cut of his pants. 

But she forgets all her hesitation when the point of her heel digs into the meat of his inner thigh, and Don hisses between his teeth and spreads his legs wider, willingly. Fuck.

She puts more pressure there with her foot, and watches his lips stretch wide as he bares his teeth, and watches the outline of his hardening cock just inches away from her foot. 

“You like that?” she says, stepping off, then stepping on his other leg no harder with her other foot, evening out the pain into something more like a hard massage.

He doesn’t answer, only breathes like he’s just run a quarter mile, and that’s all right.

“I get the feeling,” murmurs Liz, moving to slide her other foot up, higher up, then right above his cock, “you really do.” She’s bracketing the outline of his dick between her toe and heel, the heel’s arch lifting just clear of the swell, and Don’s legs are shaking, and he’s moaning again and again through his teeth.

“Thought so,” she says, and toes his shaft casually when she removes her foot. She’s really fucking turned on herself, and though that wasn’t the point of this all, she’s really looking forward to revisiting this memory later, on her own. “You sound good, really begging for it. But you know, unless you want a gag, you can’t be too loud.”

Ressler has collapsed back onto the floor, his knees still raised but his arms relaxed, his chest heaving with deep breaths, his stomach tensing and relaxing. Liz can see sweat on his forehead gleam in the dim lamplight as he shakes his head. “I’ll be quiet.”

“You sure?” she says, and runs her toe whisper-soft down his fly over his balls.

“Fuck,” he whimpers, but quietly, and that’s it. Just his hard breathing.

“Good,” she says, and runs her foot up the inseam again. “Very good.” She stands on just the carpet again, and unties Don’s sash from the bedpost. Lowering her voice, she says, “Roll over.”

-

Liz nudges the backs of his thighs with her toe and he pants, open mouthed, as he lies there on the floor on his side.

“You’re so obedient. That can’t be comfortable,” she says. “The floor’s pretty hard. And even though those hips are pretty well-padded -” she steps on his hip with a little pressure, more teasing than anything, and the point of her heel digs into and puckers the fabric on the seat of his trousers.

“You’ve got some bruises, I’ve seen them.”

She kicks at his thighs and his ass with the round toe of her shoe. She’s already worked him up, and should probably be goading him harder. As it is, he can feel the blows but not know when or where they’re coming, since she’s standing behind him. It’s like playing. She occasionally lets the edge of her heel hit and catch, occasionally lets her shoe hit the bare skin of his back just above the waist of his slacks.

Going on for long enough that she knows the pain is accumulating, making his legs sore and sensitive, she thinks about how he’ll wince when he sits tomorrow. Back at the Post Office, in his desk across from hers, where she can watch him, and where he can see her and remember, and oh god that does something for her she wasn’t expecting tonight.

It really has been a while.

“You love just lying there and taking this, don’t you?” she croons.

His arms are quivering on his legs trying to keep from curling up now, so her kicks turn into caresses again. She sits on the bed to give her support so she can lift her foot and draw her toe up and down the backs of his thighs, pushing against the tight seat of his slacks so she can contour the crack of his ass.

He’s cuffed and lying on the floor and she’s told him he has to be quiet but she’s not going to gag him… “If you’re getting bored…” She trails off. “I can give you something to do.”

She wedges her toe underneath him, just above his hip, and says “Over. On your elbows and knees.”

She watches him, wrists still cuffed together, awkwardly trying to right himself. He winces as his bare elbows rub against the carpet, and he draws his knees under him.

“Nuh uh,” she says, giving his bare foot a kick. “Ass in the air.”

He’s red-faced, she can see it, and he hesitates obviously.

She gets down in front of him so she can see his face “I said, in the air. And knees apart.”

Still, he hesitates, but he can talk, he’s not gagged or muffled or anything. just stares at her, eyes bright, panting.

“Oh, so now you don’t want to listen to me? Listen, Ressler. You know what you need to do to get out of this.”

He closes his eyes. Liz takes it as a signal.

Drawing her hand back, she smacks him across the cheek with the backs of her fingers, and his head turns into her hit. She slaps him again across the other cheek, using more of her hand now, part of the palm, to get more noise out of the smack. She gets a noise out of him, a bitten-off moan.

“Listen, Don,” she says, and he’s breathing hard, both cheeks with bright red splotches on them. “This can’t be very comfortable for you. Your legs are going to cramp up if you stay like this much longer, and I don’t want to fuck up your face tonight, or people will talk. So listen to what I say.”  
She pauses for effect, and watches his eyes flicker up toward her face. He’s listening. “You’re going to spread your knees and lean forward onto your elbows. I can guide you through it.”

He nods, and she says, “Say it.”

“Yes. Yes please.” The sound of his voice again after all the small noises he’d been letting out, it brings her back to the familiar aspect of this, the fact that she knows this man, grounds her a bit more. She can still feel the heat of his cheek on her fingers.

She puts her hand up to his face and he flinches but she knows it’s only instinct. “Shh sh sh,” she soothes, stroking his cheek. “Keep your pants on.” She gives it a tap before standing back up and walking behind him.

“Now,” she says, and she puts her foot on his ass and pushes. His pants are stretched over it so tight she can see the contour of his ass, her heel slipping between the cheeks, and she’s gentle but she knows he can feel it brush the fabric near his asshole.

He moves as she pushes, suddenly more than suggestible, downright _pliant_. “Good,” Liz says, and then she removes her foot and puts it between his knees, pushes against the inside of one, nudging it outwards. He complies.

“Beautiful,” she says, low, slow and appreciative. “That’s more like it.” She slides the toe of her foot up and down the inseam of his slacks. Splayed and practically presenting in front of her, and she feels like she’s fucking glowing.

“Good?” she asks, practically purring.

He hums, strained but content.

“Good.” She changes to the other leg, up and down, stroking where before she poked and kicked. “Feels better now.” Not a question, but she sees his head bob.

“So agreeable,” she croons, and then slides her toe all the way up to the crotch of his pants, gently rubbing at his erection through the fabric. His hips jerk but Ressler stays where he is, trembling. Liz removes her foot, lets him get a handle on things. “It’s okay,” she says. “Just breathe.”

Then she starts at the bottom of his leg again, sliding her foot up the back of his left thigh, over the swell of his ass, brushing down between his cheeks, till she presses against his perineum and balls, gently, a little pressure on and off, without saying anything, and slightly imperceptible. Barely perceptibly, he rocks back against the pressure in time.

She takes her foot away.

He whimpers.

“Uncomfortable?”

“Mhmm,” he says.

“Slacks?”

“Y-yeah. Can I…?”

“Yes.” 

He draws his legs under himself like before, knees still apart, and slowly sits up on his heels. Liz hears the snick of the button and the zip of the fly, the click of the handcuffs together. Hearing the sound of aroused relief he makes but not being able to see him adjust, what he’s doing makes her feel almost more obscene than all the rest of this.

Then he sits still.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

“Tell me what you’re doing.”

“I’m. Uh.” He clears his throat. She moves to stand next to him and puts a hand on top of his head. He regains direction. “I undid my fly. I, uh, adjusted myself.”

“Good. Take your hand away.”

He does, and she has to restrain her urge to look down at him, exposed there. He could move his head from under her hand. It’s resting so lightly. He doesn’t move. His breathing is less erratic.

“I know you said this isn’t supposed to be about sex,” Liz says. “Have I crossed a line?”

“You haven’t.”

“Are you being honest?” Not provoking, seriously asking.

“Yes.” She can hear it; he’s present, he’s lucid.

“Okay. I have a proposal, Ressler. You can say no.”

She thinks, _I want._ She remembers that this isn’t about what she wants.

Instead, “Do you want.” Breathe. “Do you want me to shove you against a wall or, or the floor, while you bring yourself off. Or do you want me to leave. Or. Is there something else.” Her tone as flat as possible, because she doesn’t want to influence him, suggestible as he is.

Her hand is combing through his hair absently. She’s made a mess of it, or maybe it was already a mess.

-

She’s got him pressed uncomfortably against the hard hotel room door, her chest to his straining back, her leg between his spread. Using her nails, she pinches the skin on his back, in lines down the small of his back, breathing on his neck. He’s got his still-cuffed hands above his head, and he’s rutting against the door, desperate for the friction.

“You’ve been so good,” she croons in his ear, and he’s a wreck underneath her, whimpering and moaning. They can hear people in the hall coming up from the bar’s last call.

She unlocks his cuffs and drops them onto the floor.

“Touch yourself. But keep quiet. Don’t want them to hear you,” she says, and slides her hand up over his throat, just resting warm with just enough pressure to indicate sureness.

“Uh-uh,” he agrees. She feels his throat flex, the skin sticky with sweat under her hand.

“Let me give you a hand,” she says, and moves another hand up, slides the one on his throat up beneath his chin, lifting his head, then over his mouth. When she rests her second hand over his throat, she feels him swallow and his throat vibrate when he makes those little uncontrollable noises, feels his soft lips open under her palm, his hot breath gust over her hand. “Good boy,” she murmurs, and presses down. He moans and the door rattles from his thrusts against his hand, and she knows it’s audible, maybe even noticeable, from the hallway. 

He’s not going to last long. To seal the deal and, selfishly, make sure he remembers her, she bites his bare shoulder, pressing in too with her nails till he comes with a grunt, shaking. Then, the only sound is the distant voices receding down the hallway now, their harsh breathing together, and the wet smack of Liz’s lips and tongue as she tastes his sweat.

-

After she leads him to the bed and sits him down there, she unties his leather cuffs. He tries to get up to retrieve the handcuffs from the floor, but all it takes is a firm press of her hand on his shoulder and he’s still, looking up at her.

She picks his undershirt up off the floor and pushes it into his hands, at his chest. “I’m going to get you a glass of water.” After she wipes up, after he drinks, after she picks the cuffs up and puts them back on his bag, after she washes her hands, she turns and asks, “Do you need anything before I go?”

He was distracted before but when he looks at her now he can’t seem to say anything. His mouth opens slightly; his eyes are still a bit glazed, less so than they were but she’s sure he’s still high as a kite on endorphins.

“I,” he says. “Thank you.”

She wants to walk over and hold him by his hair and call him a good boy again. She wants to put her hand on his face and feel the burn like she did before. But they’re coworkers. This was a favor between friends that they’re going to have to compartmentalize.

So she says, “You’re welcome,” smiling, not cool, but composed. “Goodnight, Don.”

In her room next door, Liz slumps against her closed door and roughly undoes the hook on her slacks. Who gives a shit if he can hear her through the wall, she thinks as she kicks off her shoes and slides to the floor. It only takes her a few minutes to rub herself to orgasm, thudding back against the door, letting out a strangled groan.


End file.
